March 14
2006

When Vern had Serenity.
Ain't it Cool's lovable lug and the leading seagalogist watched Serenity during the opening weekend. This is old, but looks like it's never been linked. (NSFW if plain text can be)

Starts as a positive review, then makes some odd observations, then some ranting about the fans, then some random observations again and it is a good read. If you find his style offputting, think him as the Jayne of reviewers.

I kinda get what he was saying about the laughing at every single punchline bit. I saw the BDM at a preview in London, then a preview in Kent and then again a week after opening. The preview crowd did laugh more but I think it's a case of just knowing the chatacters and being ready for their humor. Apart from one girl in a Zoe-ish costume, minus the handgun, there were no people in costume, no singalongs and, to my deep shame, we didn't even give Joss and River a standing ovation! Maybe it's just us reserved Brits compared to the wild Americans...

Heh. I don't think i'd like all my reviews in this kind of gonzo style but it certainly was entertaining.

And history is written by the victors. Stupid victors.

Not sure why but this really made me laugh ;).

I saw an early showing (i.e. a day or two before general release) of 'Serenity' and there were no problems of the kind he speaks of (since it was before release, a largely adult audience and shown just after most people finish work i'd say it was a fairly Browncoat crowd) apart from one chap who would repeat the lines he'd seen in the trailer just before they were said on screen (this was the same guy who said 'Oh Shit!' quite loudly into the shocked silence of the post Wash/spike interface scene so i'd say he was more caught up in the film than being a jerk).

In fact, it may have been my imagination but there was a feeling in the air of almost pre-emptive embarrassment, as if everyone in the audience was waiting for someone to do something obviously fannish so that they could then be embarrassed to be associated with them. But then, this was in the UK too and, especially in England, there are strange, often endearing and sometimes annoying rules about public behaviour (wonderfully and affectionately examined in a book i'm reading called 'Watching the English' by social anthropologist, Kate Fox).

(and in later viewings there was a bit of the 'early laughing' issue that was a little annoying)

Not comic book Darth Vader bad guys but bureaucratic government asshole bad guys.

Best line ever. At least that's what I thought until I read this line:

They do got these bastards called Reevers though, named after Keanu Reeves I believe.

He has a valid point about fans. There's been more than a few movies I watched with rabid fans and been turned off by their enthusiam. When I went to see Serenity for the final time in the theater I went with a group of co-workers and one of them (who is quite obxious in every day life) laughed very loudly before the joke would come so not a single person in the theater could hear it which I'm assuming ruined the movie for more than a few sitting around us.

You know, I like how he managed to talk about the fans that much and their (our?) fringe, often annoying, behavior without actually insulting them (us?). A lot of the stories that came out around the time of the movie were so mean-spirited and condescending (CHAD), but this guy was mostly looking at the phenomenon from the outside and saying "I didn't know this existed, I don't quite get it, and sometimes it scares me". But I feel like he's not attacking the people or telling them to get a life, he's ok with "to each his own".

I'm on board with him and others here saying that a lot of this behavior is annoying and distracting (laughing too early at a joke, or laughing "too hard" because you've heard a joke before). My best audience experience was at my first preview screening when no one in the theater had seen it before, and there was a real harmony in how we reacted to the funny or scary moments.

Saje, I also laughed at the "Stupid victors" line, and also at the later "Stupid bastard".

I don't know if it's a Canadian thing, but I remember going to a screening two days before the official opening, and pretty much everyone in the theatre was glued to the screen. I don't remember anyone getting rowdy, I think we were too involved in the story, and at the end, everyone clapped. It was a good experience for me. Probably because everyone was there for the same reason. I didn't get that the other times I went that week, mainly because it was the "general public" those other times. I felt like I was pulling teeth taking my friends.

Fuck the Berlin Wall coming down this is god damn SERENITY.

This is maybe the first ever non-porno space movie to have a reference to a vibrator. (These lines made me laugh)

Yes, I'm not a gonzo fan, either, but this was still pretty good. I purposely did not go to the Friday evening showing in DC (went to the afternoon matinee, though), and went again with my wife on Saturday evening. I'm a fan, a pretty big fan, but I'm not into the costume scene etc. Not putting those who are into it down at all, just that it's decidedly not my scene.

This may be my single favorite "Serenity" review ever and I totally get his point. I love this guy's honesty. Very, very funny stuff.

And I feel his pain. I remember "The Wrath of Khan" a couple of years ago at a screening where most everybody had seen it like 17 times and me, I hadn't seen it since it's release. (Not really a Trekkie/Trekker.) I would have preferred a more normally enthusiastic crowd.

Whoa, zz9, that is just too bizarre. I saw Stewart in NYC about 10 or so years ago as Prospero in The Tempest. He and the production were tremendous. It would have been horrific if I'd seen people in Federation regalia...and my wife and I were actually big fans of TNG.

On another note, one thing that disappointed me greatly about the bulk of the Serenity reviews, even the very favorable ones, was that the movie, as funny, zippy, smart and sassy as it was, wasn't given, to my mind, enough credit for being a truly serious piece of work. It's a great morality tale, one of the oldest, in fact, a story of what happens when human hubris results in humans attempting to play God...Serenity is SO much more than a fast-paced series of chases through various parts of space, culminating in one (two, actually) of the coolest fight scenes ever. Even if it is that. It's more, so much more.